Four Of A Kind
by Acestar
Summary: A mysterious card game.... and the Doctor final gets around to clearing out his 'junk!


Four of a Kind  
  
Five cards are dealt roughly across a green felted table. A pair of gloved hands picks them up, studies them carefully, rearranges them. The dealer waits patiently as his opponent sorts his cards. When the hands are still, he triumphantly places down his cards- a flush, ten of spades to king of spades. His hand reaches out to the chips piled in the centre of the table- but his challenger puts up a gloved hand. Slowly and carefully, he pulls out his first card and places it on the table.  
"Ace of Diamonds."  
________________________________________________  
  
"You really need to sort this junk out, Professor."  
"Junk? Do you have no sense of the sentimental?"  
"You mean stuff that makes people cry when they look at it?"  
".I should have guessed."  
  
Ace stared at the vast collection- at what she had rightly called 'junk'. She picked out a few items at random- a notebook full of what seems to be alien scribblings.  
"Sentimental? You can't even read this."  
  
The Doctor looked up from a shoebox of photographs. He squinted at the chicken-scratch stylings and sighed.  
"Maybe you can't. A piece of highly advanced calculus. Might be useful if something were to go wrong."  
"But nothing's going to go wrong- is it, Professor?"  
He smiled at his companion's stern tone. He knew he'd dragged her into a fair few scrapes, but they'd always escaped more or less unharmed.  
"Hopefully not, Ace. But you never know."  
Ace shook her head as she tossed the notebook aside. "No- 'specially with you around." The Doctor looked at her as she tried to open a small silver tin.  
"Are you trying to say I invite trouble to find us?"  
"With open arms!" She'd given up on carefully trying to prize the top from the bottom, and was now proceeding to pull it apart with considerable force. He snatched it from her and deftly slid off the lid. She smiled. "Should've known- nothing's ever simple with you around."  
  
He chose to ignore her last comment in favour of searching through the box of photographs. He pulled one out with a gentle smile. "I remember this," he said to himself softly. It was a black and white picture of a cricket team- with him standing in the centre, his old dazzling smile beaming up at him. To his left stood a woman in a short jacket, her matching short hair not exactly fitting in with the general costume. On the right stood a surly looking young man in a blazer. "I remember this well," he repeated. A gasp from Ace's direction pulled his attention away.  
"What have you found now?"  
"You've got to see this!"  
He peered over her shoulder into the silver box- and at the bottom sat a silver ring. Ace picked it up gingerly- and a sparkling reflection from the gemstone in its centre dazzled them both.  
"It's a real diamond!" Ace said in awe. The Doctor smiled.  
"A nice little piece of 'junk', isn't it?"  
  
Ace turned to him, her own mischievous smile on her face.  
"Junk? You can't call this junk- it's sentimental."  
____________________________________________________  
  
The dealer stares. So the first card was an ace. His opponent hadn't changed any cards. Unless he'd dealt an exceptional hand, he guessed that the rest would be of low value. But a small doubt started to form in his mind. The challenger laid down a second card to join the ace of diamonds.  
"Ace of clubs."  
____________________________________________________  
  
"Is there anything you haven't got hidden away?" Ace complained as a teetering pile of boxes threatened to fall on top of her. "It's like Aladdin's cave in here!"  
The Doctor picked up the photograph, along with a select few others, and slipped them inside his white jacket. "Well, I haven't ventured in here for a while," he said offhandedly.  
"A while?" she asked as she steadied the boxes. "How long do you call a while? Twenty years?"  
"Oh, very clever," he replied as he moved another shoebox. "Found anything of any use yet?"  
She held up what seemed to be a cross between an old camera and a stage light. "Not really."  
"Keep looking, then."  
They continued in silence for a while. The items Ace pulled from various precarious boxes became more and more 'alien'. Her eyes lit up as she pulled out a crossbow type object. Shouldering it like a seasoned professional, she lined up the sights at a point on the wall. The Doctor turned back and pulled it out of her grasp. She stared at him like a child who had been deprived of it's favourite toy- then pulled a face and dislodged another, gratefully smaller, box.  
  
"Professor?"  
"Ace."  
"Botany?"  
  
This single word made him look over to where his companion was staring at a laminated membership card. He joined her and once again stared over her shoulder at the article.  
" 'North American Botanist Club'. Botany? Ah, yes! Botany!"  
Ace's confused look returned for a second appearance. "Why are you in an American botany club? Do you have green fingers to go with your yellow belly?"  
He stared at her as she grinned. "I am far from cowardly, as you well know. And my botany skills go as far as your appreciation for good music." Smiling at the fact that he had settled the score, he deftly took the card from her hands. "This belonged to one of my other companions."  
"Mel?" She guessed, then shrugged as he shook his head.  
"It belongs- or should I say belonged- to one Perpugilliam Brown. She was a botany student from America. I met her in Lanzarote- but it was not a holiday!" he added as Ace's mouth opened for a quick comeback. She scowled good-naturedly. "She won't be needing it any more. She got married to the Krontep warlord Yrcanos- at least, that's what the Inquisitor assured me happened."  
Ace nodded and smiled, completely baffled as to what he was going on about. "Any other clubs you may or may not be part of that I need to know about?"  
He turned back to the box and lifted the lid to reveal the various badges and pins he had collected from his travels. "Not particularly. You?"  
"Only the Youth Club back in Perivale." She replied, a wistful smile crossing her face. "I used to meet up with all my mates there on a Sunday. Sometimes we'd go to Horsenden Hill- or the pub, of course."  
The Doctor stopped. "Pub? I though there were laws against young people drinking?"  
Ace began to wish she'd never mentioned it. "Everybody does it, Professor. Besides, the barman didn't know any better, and none of us were going to tell him."  
The Doctor shook his head and returned to his box of tricks. "I can imagine."  
______________________________________________________  
  
The dealer wipes his brow nervously. One pair, and aces at that. His luck seems to be running out. He sees a glimmer of a smile on his opponent's face.  
"Having second thoughts?"  
He can only shake his head. The smile broadens as the challenger pulls out his third card. He holds it still for a while, teasing his prey like a bird of prey teases it's lunch. He flicks it across the table, and it slides to a halt at the dealer's shaky hands.  
"Ace of Spades."  
  
The dealer mutters a silent curse.  
______________________________________________________ 


End file.
